Dealing with Diaspora Dissent in Different Domains

A Conceptual Framework of Authoritarian Regimes’
Foreign Social Media Strategies


Allison Koh


ipb annual conference
Freie Universität Berlin
October 6, 2023

Overview



Areas of Inquiry

Why do diasporas pose a unique threat to governments engaging in repression?

What resources are available for states to control social media activity?

How do states address diaspora dissent on foreign social media?


Observable Implications

What data can we use in this research area?

What challenges will researchers face in this area?

Diasporas as Regime Threats

What is so threatening about dissent in diasporas?

“Horizontal” networks at home 🏡
(Brinkerhoff 2009; Alonso and Oiarzabal 2010; Bernal 2020)

“Vertical” networks abroad 🌏
(Keck and Sikkink 1999; Michaelsen 2018; Esberg and Siegel 2020)

Diasporas as Regime Threats

Why would states want to limit diaspora dissent?


Regime survival1

  • Fragment cross-border connections
  • Discourage mobilization of potential challengers

External image management2

  • Evade sanctions
  • Promote favorable foreign policy outcomes

Affordances of Social Media for State Repression

What do we know? Where are the gaps?

 

At Home 🏡

Abroad 🌍

Domestic Platforms

Direct control over platform policies
(King, Pan, and Roberts 2013; Stockmann 2013)

States + proxies disrupt information flows
(King, Pan, and Roberts 2017; Roberts 2018)

State agents contact/surveil regime threats (Dalmasso et al. 2018; Schenkkan and Linzer 2021)

Coercion-by-proxy of family/friends at home (F. Adamson and Tsourapas 2020; Moss, Michaelsen, and Kennedy 2022)

Foreign Platforms

State-aligned trolling/harassment
(Nyst and Monaco 2018; Posetti et al. 2021)

Content blocking, platform use restrictions
(Pan 2017)

State + proxies frame repressive actions

Targeted disinformation and threats

➡️ No provision over “image management”

Affordances of Social Media for State Repression

Key Definitions 🔎📕


Transnational Repression

Tools and tactics to intimidate and silence diaspora dissent

(Schenkkan and Linzer 2021)


Diaspora

A cross-border social collectivity that sustains community identity through cohesion and ties to an [imagined] homeland, addressing collective interests through organization and transnational links

(F. B. Adamson and Demetriou 2007)

Addressing Diaspora Dissent on Foreign Social Media

Actors Involved


Which diaspora dissidents are targeted?

  • Prominent activists in exile are more threatening than other diaspora; clear and credible relationship to the state
  • More international attention ➡️ more indiscriminate efforts

Who is behind the keyboard?

  • States: officials, hired trolls, bots
  • Other actors: genuine regime loyalists, non-citizen “tankies”

Addressing Diaspora Dissent on Foreign Social Media

A Typology of State Strategies

Pro-Government Actor Type

       Mobilizing Capacity       

 

Official 🏛️

Coordinated 🕸️

Genuine Amplifiers 🤩

⬆️

⬇️

Observable Implications

What data can we use in this research area?


Expert-curated Datasets on Transnational Repression1

  • Global: Authoritarian Actions Abroad Database, Freedom House
  • Regional: Central Asian Political Exiles, China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs

Social Media Data

  • Application Programming Interfaces: Automated data retrieval based on website protocols
  • Scrapers: For web data that doesn’t have an available API

Observable Implications

What challenges will researchers face in this area?


Limitations

  • More information from democracies ➡️ difficult to compare across host state regime type
  • Information on political exiles may not be applicable to all diaspora
  • The “Attribution Problem”: Difficulty linking social media data to pro-government actors

Ethical Considerations

  • ⚠️ Don’t create an instruction manual for dictators!
  • Legal/ethical considerations for collecting social media in the “post-API age” (Freelon 2018)

Conclusion

Why should we care about state strategies for digital diasporas?


Areas of Inquiry: Digital Diasporas and Transnational Repression

  • Diasporas can credibly impose reputational and economic costs on their home countries.
  • Foreign social media offer states a low-cost option for global information control.
  • Account for pro-government actor types and diaspora dissenters’ mobilization potential.

Observable Implications

  • We can link data on transnational repression to social media/digital traces.
  • May need to compromise scope conditions with human subjects research on social media.

Thank you!

koh@hertie-school.org

https://allisonkoh.github.io/

🟦 @allisonwkoh

References

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